After a few weeks, I got used to the new surroundings. Living in Rinca is tough, but I think it will be a good life experience for me and my future. Waking up, quick breakfast and then swimming is my nearly everyday morning schedule, in which I enjoy a lot. Teaching english in elementary school is still fun and my skills and the knowledge of the kids have improved in every lesson. Win- win-situation, I guess.
After a lesson in school, I never walk home alone. I’m always followed by a crowd of kids, so you really can see us from far away!One day,we talked about hobbies and a girl told me with a big smile on her face that her new hobby besides reading is learning english now. I think this is one of the best compliments an english teacher could get! And when I hear something like that,it motivates me even more to continue.
This month luckily I got the chance to visit some other Taman Bacaan Pelangi’s libraries for the birthday video-project.It was so much fun.Rinca, Roe Village, Melo Village and Messah Island. The way to get to these places were an adventure in itself,if you know the streets of Flores. But,then it was great to see the differences between them. Every villageis different. However,from what I see, the children in these villages love to read and are very lucky to have access and the opportunity to read so many quality children’s books at the Taman Bacaan Pelangi’s libraries.
This month,Simon (another Taman Bacaan Pelangi’s volunteer from Germany) and I started a new little letter exchange project between Roe and Rinca. We want to give the children the opportunity to talk about their everday life and to compare what’s different and to find similarities. They love it, and we hope maybe someday they can meet each other.
Last but not least, I organized thelibrary in Rinca Village and tagged everybook so they know it belongs to Taman Bacaan Pelangi, because in a mysterrious way some books went missing, sometimes! I tried the kids getting used to the new simple catalogue-ing system.It wasn’t easy to explain about this new system, because the children in Rinca Village were very wild,they’re like hyperactive ants. However, in the end, it worked out well, because the older ones helped me in explaining it to the younger ones. The younger kids learned from their seniors! Awesome!
We had some fun to beautify the library with mussels too, so that the reading is more enjoyable.
Ok – that’s it fo rnow..I hope you enjoyed reading it.
Stay tuned and keep donating books!
Paul